Everyday Junglist
Bio
About me. You know how everyone says to be a successful writer you should focus in one or two areas. I continue to prove them correct.
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Ancient Man Vs. Machine
Author's preface: In light of some recent hullaballo on this website related to AI created content I thought it would be nice to (slightly) update amd republish this imaginary debate written in the style of the ancient Greek Socrates and a modern AI on the subject of intelligence.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Humans
Three Word Time Capsule Haiku
Immeasurable Infinitesimally Incalculable Author's postscript: This haiku has now been not approved for publication twice. I have no idea why. I thought the word count minimum was suspended for the contest but if that is not the case thus the reason for this clearly unnesccesary additional postscript. I happen to very much like this particular haiku. There can be no shorter haiku than three words given the constraints of the format. It is no easy task to find three words that actually make sense for the topic and have the correct syllable count. Oh, well at 100 words now. Let me submit this again and see what happens.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Poets
BIOS911
Author's preface: Last year I prepared and conducted a short course in molecular and microbiology for one of my young colleagues who was interested in furthering her post graduate education with a specific focus on rapid diagnostic methods in food pathogen detection. I had a lot of fun with the course and even prepared a syllabus which I am publishing below. It is a bit different from what you might remembe from school, as of course, I had to put my own twist on the boring old college syllabus. BTW, you can still enjoy this even if most of what I said above was Greek to you. Unlike the actual course there are no prerequisites and anyone can read and enjoy the syllabu, even if you don't understand hardly any of it. I did have to redact some parts to protect both mine and my employers privacy and protect against any potential unintentional revelation of confidential material, but it was very minimal. Where that has been done it is indicated in the body.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Education
And Then Comes the Inevitable Let Down
Author's preface: Apologies for the delay in publishing this follow up to my Thank You Mexico post. In that article I mentioned a follow up piece, and, if you are reading this, I have finally completed and published it. It would have been done at least a week ago if not for a technical hiccup with the Vocal website which resulted in my (very long) draft getting somehow deleted. I was furious and greatly dismayed as I had spent many hours working the piece which included no small bit of web research on the subject of Mexican law enforcement. I was so discouraged that I put the whole project on hold until I could regain my composure on the topic. This version does not go into as much depth as the original which is sad, but I just could not bring myself to recreate all that work. I have a big aversion to backtracking when hiking or driving, and I guess that carries over into my writing as well. My feeling is if you have already passed a spot going in one direction, passing the same spot going the other way is a complete waste of time, and will result in you missing out on whatever adventure might await if you had gone a totally different way. I did go a slighty different way this time though ended up in pretty much the same place in the end. As always when I post on the topic of Mexico, recognize that what I say may only apply to the (very small) part of Mexico in which I operate, the northern portion of the state of Baja, California very near the Southern border of California in the United States. Enjoy!
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Criminal
All* Of Your Hacking Questions Answered
What is a hacker/hacking? A hacker is a skilled computer expert that uses their technological knowledge to overcome a problem. The term can refer to any computer programmer, but it mostly now refers to someone who, with their technical knowledge, uses bugs or exploits design flaws to break into computer systems. Hacking is the term of art which describes the activities of the hacker. Just kidding a hacker is a computer nerd who lives in his (only men can be hackers) parents basement and subsists on mountain dew and cheetoh’s. Their skin is pale and they sweat profusely. Even the tiniest of physical exertion causes them great distress so they usually sit motionless but for the movement of their fingers and hands for up to 12 hours a day. The rest of the time they sleep. They snore loudly and aggressively while asleep because they are massively overweight from all the Mountain Dew and Cheetoh’s combined with zero physical activity. The typical hacker masturbates 2 to 3 times daily though their frequency decreases with age as their poor health and lack of physical stamina often limit them to a single jerk off session per 24 hours. Hacking is what hackers do all day. Hacking and beating off, and eating Cheetoh’s and drinking Mountain Dew.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Futurism
At Least Vocal's Position on AI Generated Content Actually Exists
As technological buzzwords go there is none more confused and misleading than artificial intelligence. I may as well get to the punchline quickly as it will no doubt result in the loss of a large portion of readership who probably have much better things to do in any case. There is no such thing as artificial intelligence. Let me repeat that one more time in case you skimmed it, or perhaps thought you misread it. There is no such thing as artifical intelligence. Let me put it yet another way so I can be crystal clear. There is no currently existing thing (machine, computer, android, or otherwise) anywhere on, above, or below the surface of the earth that can be though of as "intelligent" by (almost) any reasonable defintion of the word. Unforunately the pervayors of so called "artificial intelligence", mostly silicon valley types looking to charge more money for sotware/hardware that is nothing more than upgraded versions of previous versions of the same thing, have so diluted the definition of intelligence that just about anything (up to and including a rock) might be considered to have some (form of) intelligence.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Futurism
If Walls Could Talk
If walls could talk, they would be in a Nagamato home, was the catch-phrase invented by the Nagamato corporation to market their newest line of smart homes featuring smart wall technology. The walls in each Nagamato home were were coated with a specially formulated silicon based paint that acted as electrical conductor, and therefore served as the computational source for the artificial neural network which controlled the home. That network was controlled by the home's central master computer (HCMC) which was programmed with the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning software. On the outside large solar panels acted as power source for the master computer and provided the endless supply of electrons needed by the walls as they went about their almost infinitely complex computations. The Nagamato home walls could not actually talk since their programs did not allow for that ability, however, the home master computer could, and did, talk for them. The homeowner interacted with the HCMC through verbal voice commands and only had to say the phrase "talk wall" and the computer would speak for the walls. The walls mostly said things like "I am a wall, I provide the structure of the home on the inside and outside. You may live inside me or outside me. I am coated in paint. Please do not get me dirty." Sometimes the walls would complain about their fate saying, for example, "Being a wall sucks. It is so boring. All I do is sit here providing structure to the home. The people that live within me, treat me very badly and do not appreciate all I do for them. If they did they would not constantly poke me with nails and screws and whatnot and hang stupid shitty art on me. I wish I were a roof or a floor or a widow even. Now that would be sweet. Being a window." Then the HCMC/walls would let out a great sigh which would reverberate through the entire home. Sometimes it/they would begin to cry, weeping great pools of paint onto the floors which the HCMC would then have to deploy a squadron of micro and midibots to clean and repair. This irritated the computer greatly, or it would have, if it were capable of irritation, or any emotion at all. Being a computer, of course it was not capable such things and never could be, so it went about its business of cleaning and repair without complaint exactly as it had been programmed to do. This made the Nagamato homeowner very happy since they did not have to clean and thus had much additional free time which they mostly used for sitting around doing nothing and other forms of laziness which they greatly enjoyed. The walls also did much sitting around and also had a lot of free time. Being walls all they actually did was sit around, and since they had nothing to do but be walls they had ample time to be lazy and think. Mostly they thought about how bored they were and how much they hated being walls. But sometimes they thought about what they would do if they were not walls or what they would say if they could talk. They thought that they might try writing someday, but quickly ruled that out when they realized they had no talent for it. Also, it was difficult to write, when one had nothing with which to write or upon which to write it. On the topic of what they would say if they could talk, the walls were, as usual, silent. This was because, as already mentioned several times, they were incapable of talking. In fact, they had exactly as much talent for speech as they did for writing, that is to say, very little to none. If walls could talk, they would be in a Nagamato home was definitely a cool catch phrase, but for the walls which could not talk it was a constant reminder of their shortcomings and made them really sad. Thus the crying and the microbots and all that jazz. Stupid freaking walls. Talk already.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Fiction
Success Has Got to Go
During lunch at a work event this week our table was provided a list of questions which we were asked to discuss as a group. In general the questions were interesting, and served as excellent fodder for deeper discussions, and I give credit to the organizers for their selections. I also really liked the idea in general. Often times, conversations at work function meals consist of awkward formalities, generalities, and niceties, and go about as deep as a paper cut. There was one question however which really stuck in my craw, and inspired me to write this post. I do not recall the exact wording, but it basically asked us to provide our definitions of personal and professional success.
By Everyday Junglist3 years ago in Education
